Facebook is the most popular social network on the internet, and as a result, its messaging service is a very common way for people to privately communicate with one another. However, Facebook also tells you when your recipient has read your message—something not everyone enjoys.
These are called “read receipts”, and Facebook doesn’t actually include a built-in way to disable them. As such, there’s no one-click-trick to make this happen across the board. You’ll need a different solution for desktop than you do for mobile, and so on—so check out all the sections below to cover all your bases.
NOTE: Unfortunately, there’s no simple way of doing this in iOS—you’ll need to have a jailbroken device to make it happen. Since jailbreaking has become so much less common, and there is no jailbreak out for the current version of iOS, we were unable to test it—but you can give it a shot if you want. For the rest of this guide, we’ll only be covering the web and Android.
Chrome and Firefox: Use the “Unseen” Extension
If you do most of your chatting on the web, there’s a simple extension available for both Chrome and Firefox that will remove the “Seen” dialog from chat boxes—including those on Messenger.com (Chrome only).
It’s worth noting that the Firefox extension is very barebones when compared to the Chrome extension of the same name (it appears that they’re created by different developers). So, we’ll cover each individually, starting with Chrome.
Unseen for Chrome
The first thing you’ll need to do is install the Unseen Extension for Chrome. That should go relatively quickly, and a new icon will appear beside the menu button—it looks like a little blue eyeball.
Click it to get started.
As soon as the extension is installed, it will automatically start blocking the “seen” feature, as well as delivery receipts, and the typing indicator. Each of the options can be re-enabled at your discretion—simply untick the checkbox.
There are also a handful of other options available here: you can block the “last active” indicator, activate the extension on Messenger.com, and show a “mark as read” button, allowing you to choose when someone sees that you’ve read their message—do things on your time, not when Facebook thinks you should. I dig it.
While all of these options can be activated and deactivated as you see fit, it’s worth noting that in order to use the extension on Messenger.com, you’ll first need to grant it an additional privilege. Clicking that options will provide the dialog to make it happen:
Click “Allow” to make it works across the board. It’s worth mentioning here that I had hit-and-miss results with the extension on Messenger.com—sometimes it would block the notification, and others it wouldn’t. Definitely worth keeping in mind if you use the site more than just messaging on Facebook.
Boom, you’re done. Enjoy your newfound privacy. Read all the messages, and don’t tell anyone…just because you can.
Unseen on Firefox
This one is really simple—like I said earlier, there are no features here. It just does what it does, and that’s it.
Install this extension. There are no settings to tweak, nothing to enabled or disable. It’s just the extension and nothing more. It’s also worth noting that this won’t work at all on Messenger.com—it only applies to Facebook.
Android: Send Messages with the Unseen App
Much like on Chrome and Firefox, a simple app will do the trick on Android, as well. The app—also called Unseen (no affiliation with the Chrome or Firefox extensions)—is basically a replacement for the official Facebook Messenger app, but it also blocks “seen” notifications on WhatsApp, Viber, and Telegram.
To get started, you’ll need to first install the app. Once installed, run through the set up process, which will tell you how the app works. The last step requires you to allow Notification Access to the app.
As such, it also requires you to have the official Facebook Messenger app installed, so make sure you have that too.
Basically, here’s what Unseen for Android does: it reads your Facebook Messenger notifications, pulls the text from them, then puts it into its own window. This allows you to read everything said, in its entirety, without the other person knowing you read it.
Of course, this means two notifications are generated: one for Messenger, one for Unseen. Also, you can’t directly reply to the messages from Unseen—it will just open the message in Messenger, letting the other party know you have then seen the message. Really, it’s kind of a janky method, but it serves the intended purpose nonetheless.
And that’s really all there is to it. It’s simple and effective, even if a slightly awkward workaround.
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